Although the present disclosure is applicable to Keno, Lotto, Bingo, Spinning Reel, and Card games, for ease of illustration, the disclosure is described mainly in connection with a Keno game and in particular, gaming devices having video keno games.
Early versions of American Keno used characters on the Keno ticket, rather than the numbers used today. The American game dropped the number of characters to the more familiar eighty. When gambling was legalized Nevada in 1931, the Chinese lottery game was referred to as Horse Race Keno, capturing the idea that the numbers are horses and the player wants the wagered horse to win, place or show. Over time the name has been shortened to simply Keno. Keno is similar to a lottery game. The goal is to choose a winning number or numbers from a plurality of numbers. Most current versions of Keno have eighty numbers including the numbers one to eighty. The player can bet on any number or numbers, up to fifteen numbers, which the player does by marking or picking the selected numbers. Typically, the player can pick 2 to 10 numbers for video keno or 2 to 15 for paper Keno.
In older Keno games the numbers were generated using ping-pong type balls. In more modern Keno, numbers are generated via computers using random number generators. When a number is chosen, the number is shown electronically on Keno boards throughout the casino or on a video monitor of a Keno gaming device.
In live Keno, a number of Keno outlets and Keno monitors are placed in various places around a casino or gaming establishment. The player plays using a ticket and returns a winning ticket to the Keno ticket writer to redeem the win. In video keno, the game keeps track of wins and losses via a credit display as with other types of wagering gaming machines.
Certain variations of Keno have expected returns that are dependent on a number of factors. In general, the highest award for matching all picked numbers increases as the amount of numbers the player plays increases. The frequency of winning depends for example on how few matches are needed to obtain any award. The gaming device manufacturers create a paytable for varying amounts of matches to produce a desired average expected value.
Keno has been embodied in various types of gaming devices. While Keno is relatively popular, a need exists to provide variations of Keno to players to make the play of both the video and casino versions of Keno more enjoyable, fun and exciting.
Some ways gaming device manufacturers have added enjoyment and excitement to gaming devices is through larger payouts or special awards. However, due to the typical 80 number Keno game odds, it is difficult to provide large awards in such Keno games for at least the reasons described below.
One known way to provide large payouts in other wagering games such as slot games has been with progressive gaming. The odds in slot games can be configured to easily accommodate large progressive awards. Progressive games, which have existed at least since the mid-1980's, have become very popular. For instance, known progressive slot machines contain progressive awards that increase every time a player places a wager on a play of a primary game of the slot machine. Progressive awards can involve one or more gaming machines. For example, an individual progressive slot machine can have a self contained progressive award, wherein the jackpot grows with every play of that machine. A linked progressive includes two or more slot machines at the same or different locations connected to a common progressive award, each of which individually contribute to the progressive award. Each machine usually takes a percentage of the player's wager, such as two percent, and adds it to the progressive award. The progressive awards can reach sizeable amounts, such as multi-million dollar jackpots, before a player hits or wins the progressive award.
Such sizeable progressive awards become very attractive to players. As the progressive award grows, so does the game's average expected payout percentage because the game pays out more (by way of the progressive award) while the likelihood of receiving the progressive award remains constant.
Known methods of incorporating progressive awards or other relatively large awards or prizes in a variable wager level game such as Keno suffer from the problem of fixed odds of winning awards. The likelihood of receiving a progressive award or other relatively large award is generally not proportionate to a player's wager level. This encourages certain players to wager at a minimum level because a minimum or maximum wager will give the player the same odds of winning a progressive award or other relatively large award. A partial solution to this problem is to require a player to match a specific or minimum wager level to qualify for the progressive awards or other relatively large award. However, the player may not have an incentive to wager more than the required minimum and up to the maximum allowed by the game.
Keno further complicates the wagering process because a player is typically given a variable number of selections (i.e., in the conventional video keno game, the player can pick from 2 to 10 numbers as mentioned above). This variable number of selections causes the outcome odds to vary radically according to the number of player selections. However, certain casino operators like to offer one or more progressive awards or other relatively large awards in video keno games regardless of the number of player selections. A potential solution to this problem is to only offer such progressive awards or other relatively large awards if a player makes a minimum specific number of selections such as 10 of 10 or 9 of 10. This potential solution makes the progressive awards or other relatively large awards unavailable to a player that may want to select only 4 of 10 numbers to play the Keno game.
A need therefore exists to provide a player an improved ability to win progressive awards or other relatively large awards in games such as Keno, where there is a variable wager level and a variable number of player selections.